Russia Today

October 17, 2010 12:34 AM

Russian films worth watching l Russian cuisine l Russiapedia l Historama l War Witness films l from rt.com the first Russian 24/7 English-language news channel which brings the Russian view on global news. The Russia Today YouTube channel.

A few of the fun/odd clips on the site: purple snow l anti-nuke warhead UFOs l the first dogs in space l Russian Mafia quiz l The Arbat, one of Moscow's oldest streets.

posted by nickyskye (23 comments total)

I'm sorry, but this is not a good post. RT is basically the Iraqi Ministry of Information crossed with Fox News and given a better marketing team. There's no need to encourage this kind of shit.
posted by nasreddin at 12:44 AM on October 17, 2010 [4 favorites]

According to a variety of sources such as Der Spiegel and Reporters Without Borders, the channel presents pro-Kremlin "propaganda". Russia Today staff have nonetheless claimed that their coverage is "fair and balanced."

Awesome.

Yes it's shit, but it's shit many of us know very little about, and it's shit that broadcasts in 100 countries. I want to know about it, much as I'd want to know about Fox News if I didn't already.

Also, with the exception of the lines I quoted, the Wikipedia article seems to have been written by by the RT promotional staff. ("RT alongside the aforementioned media sources has become a major player in the battle for information, and a serious obstacle to some of the western players")
posted by Dumsnill at 1:21 AM on October 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Well, the list of films is nice, at least.
posted by archagon at 1:26 AM on October 17, 2010

Russia Today is great for comedy. It is conspiracy central, guaranteed to provide you with the most ridiculous theories about everything. Kind of like Baghdad bob, the Iraqi information minister.
posted by dagny at 1:55 AM on October 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

That Sherlock Holmes sounds interesting. I'm going to have to try to find that.
posted by Decani at 2:06 AM on October 17, 2010

So they're Russian to Judgment?
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:45 AM on October 17, 2010 [5 favorites]

I'm a big fan of http://englishrussia.com/
posted by andryeevna at 2:54 AM on October 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

RT is a piece of shit.
posted by k8t at 3:13 AM on October 17, 2010

As far as absurdist YouTube-only news channels go, I prefer Supreme Master Television to RT.
posted by shii at 3:28 AM on October 17, 2010

Ugh for Russia Today linked unironically.

The recipes on the cuisine page are in my opinion not very cookable unless you already know how to make all those dishes. "Throw it in the pan and fry it" only works when you've already done it twenty times (speaking as a person who's ruined these same dishes with much better instruction).

And yes, EnglishRussia is great.
posted by Shusha at 5:55 AM on October 17, 2010

Seems to me we had several Russia Today programs linked here just last week.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:34 AM on October 17, 2010

Hmm...in terms of Russian films I'd expect at least Burnt By The Sun to be mentioned. Big fail for not including one of the best films ever, from any country. Not one Mikhalkov flick. Not a good list.
posted by jimmythefish at 6:34 AM on October 17, 2010

I have Russia Today on my satellite TV subscription. I watch it occasionally and the international news segments are OK. There isn't much pro-Kremlin spin you can put on the Chilean mine rescue or the Champions League soccer round-up. And it is positively bias-free compared to Press TV, which makes my skin crawl
posted by afx237vi at 6:54 AM on October 17, 2010

shii: As far as absurdist YouTube-only news channels go, I prefer Supreme Master Television to RT.

Believe it or not, it isn't Youtube-only. It broadcasts on channel 835 on Sky in the UK.
posted by afx237vi at 6:59 AM on October 17, 2010

I'm sorry, but this is not a good post. RT is basically the Iraqi Ministry of Information crossed with Fox News and given a better marketing team. There's no need to encourage this kind of shit.

That sucks. Can you recommend something better for those who are Russian curious?
posted by nomadicink at 7:21 AM on October 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

As a complete derail, there is a pretty decent vegetarian restaurant here in Toronto that is run by the Supreme Master cult. They show Supreme Master TV continuously on a big-screen TV. Makes eating there a surreal experience. Good food though.
posted by sid at 7:55 AM on October 17, 2010

The Independent did a great Kremlinology of Russia Today
posted by volt4ire at 8:26 AM on October 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

I managed to catch some RT while my cable provider was running a free preview, and dear lord that is some fucked up bullshit.

Literally every single "report" was such blatant propaganda of the sort that I had always assumed had gone the way of the Iron Curtain. There was one piece in particular about children who were Beslan school hostages, commemorating the sixth anniversary of the tragedy, which was not only egregiously emotionally manipulative (overtly nationalistic and anti-Chechnya), but also often contradictory to what I remember reading about the chain of events at the time. It also contained ridiculous assertions like--I shit you not--the claim that some of the kids had had psychic apparitions of the tragedy days before. That's a sure marker of a serious news organization, right there.

Here's a particularly relevant snippet from the article I just linked to for those who won't click through:

The [Beslan school] tragedy led to security and political repercussions in Russia, most notably a series of federal government reforms consolidating power in the Kremlin and strengthening of the powers of the President of Russia. According to American NGO Freedom House, these reforms consolidated Russia as a politically non-free, authoritarian state since the mid-2000s. As of 2010, there are many aspects of the crisis still in dispute, including how many militants were involved, their preparations, and whether some of them had escaped. Questions about the government's management of the crisis have also persisted, including disinformation and censorship in news media, repression of journalists who rushed to Beslan, the nature and content of negotiations with the militants, the responsibility for the bloody outcome, and the government's use of possibly excessive force.

posted by Sys Rq at 8:32 AM on October 17, 2010

Premonitions, even.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:06 AM on October 17, 2010

Sumner Redstone caught by Max
posted by hortense at 10:17 AM on October 17, 2010

Sumner Redstone caught by Max

Yeesh. That's one heckuva crack research department they've got there, if they think Divine is still alive. It's fun listening to the woman try to read those headlines, though. Almost gives Rexella Van Impe a run for her money.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:52 AM on October 17, 2010

Believe it or not, it isn't Youtube-only. It broadcasts on channel 835 on Sky in the UK.

And to bring this full circle, I once found that station while staying in one of the former Soviet Republics, and it was an oddly comforting reminder of home.
posted by piratebowling at 8:51 PM on October 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was sort of wondering about this recently. RT videos show up on Google News more than any other video source, in my experience, and sometimes they're refreshingly free of a sort of US-centric myopia, but as noted many of the stories are off in ways that seem at times like clumsy non-native reporting and other times like dispatches from an alternate universe. I hadn't yet encountered anything alarming, though, such as conspiracy-mongering or psychic phenomena treated as real.

Thing is, whatever SEO they're doing seems to be working. I actually have to work to get video reports from other sources. I think I'll customize them out of my feed, now.

I don't believe GN is a major source of news for any worthwhile population (for me it's a very unrefined alternative to a true news portal like MSNBC), but I've wondered if a progressive news network could start inserting itself in the mainstream conversation more by using the same approaches (at least as long as the "MSM" isn't doing so effectively). Note: I don't mean Alex Jones type of stuff, or even MSNBC cable's commentary slant -- I just mean a bog standard center-left take on actual news.
posted by dhartung at 1:20 AM on October 18, 2010